


(When We're) Hundreds of Miles Apart

by KorrohShipper



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alive Peggy Carter, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Day 7, Day 8, F/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Quarantine, Steggy - Freeform, Steggy Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25549912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KorrohShipper/pseuds/KorrohShipper
Summary: When Peggy is in Brooklyn but Steve is in Washington.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	(When We're) Hundreds of Miles Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Day 7 (Saturday) - Free Choice  
> Day 8 (Quarantine)

Steve had just methodically stripped down and deconstructed his clothes until he was clad in only a white undershirt and a gray boxer shorts.

Tony was probably holed up in his floor of the building, tinkering away on some contraption that he would, no doubt, have in his hand as he'd barge through the doors when he's finished regardless of the time.

Steve sighed—he peeled away the remainder of his clothes as he entered the shower stall. He cranked the knob into the far left. The water honestly felt like little, tiny spits of fire digging into his skin, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Soap came first; Steve took the anti-bacterial bar into his hands and rubbed it against his skin until it formed a thick film of foam over him. His chest felt heavy as he traced over the marks of his safety goggles, or the crater of nicked skin left by the metal bar of his face mask (it would be healed when morning comes, but then again, he'd do it all over again).

Even as he burned under the spray of the hot water, he closed his eyes, willing his mind to forget.

With a quick flick of his wrist, Steve finished up his shower with some shampoo and a rinse before drying himself and getting dressed. Already sluggish, Steve let his feet drag against the cold wooden panels—

**_Plonk!_ **

Steve jolted awake; he had walked into a wall. He thought of his bed with a longing glance, just craning his head an inch to the direction of his bedroom before focusing on the task at hand and sat down on his work desk, rifling through the stack upon stacks of paperwork, character and witness testimonies, and legal precedence.

He glanced outside the window, the Washington Memorial just barely visible in the distance. Steve let his eye shut for just a moment, trying to conjure the distinct sound and rush of his home. He missed Brooklyn.

The trip to Washington wasn't sprung upon him at the last minute—contrary to it, Pepper had talked to him over three months ago if he was willing to stand in as a witness for Bucky's trial.

But what was supposed to be a three week trip was extended to an indefinite stay—this new SARS mutation had spread faster than the government anticipated despite the warnings of Stark Industries and other vocal bodies of activists and concerned parties.

The trial had been, understandably, postponed, but when he and Tony attempted to fly back to New York to be with the rest of the Avengers, they had been blocked—Washington imposed a travel ban, extending to those who are even Avengers.

So, there he was, in Washington, reviewing a case that may not be tried for a very long time, so very far away from home—

**"PeggyCarter_013 wants to talk to you!"**

**ACCEPT OR DECLINE**

Steve blinked at his laptop, its screen suddenly brought to a bright life as the text box popped up in the middle.

Steve's brows furrowed and he stumbled frozen, for a second. His gaze fell to the bottom right of his laptop and he gave a soft, small smile. It was Saturday.

Leaning back to his seat, Steve clicked a button and the kitchen of his Brooklyn brownstone materialized before him, the sight of Peggy cooking dinner had greeted him.

Well, he thought with a wry smile, cooking was too generous a description of what she was doing. In the corner of the screen, though barely visible, was a wrinkled but neatly folded paper bag with the distinct red dragon logo of their favorite Chinese place at the bodegas. 

He and Peggy, despite trying, had never truly been gifted when it came to the matters of the kitchen. He thinks that the custom kitchen that Tony and Pepper paid for, despite being truly beautiful and highly ergonomic, was for all intent and purpose a very expensive microwave for take-outs.

Of course, Steve thought with a hopeful and growing smile, with his mind just glossing over to his nightstand back at home where at the end right corner was a deep hole held a small velvet box, that one day that arrangement would change. 

Before the pandemic, between being the lead on field missions or becoming the man in the chair—an increasing occurrence—Steve had took it upon himself to take cooking classes and stocked up his phone with cooking videos.

After all, to be the least bit worthy of a woman like Peggy Carter, he had to have something a tad bit more to offer other than being sorry for being almost seventy years late to a dance. 

Steve still thanks his lucky stars when he thinks of that fateful day when Nick Fury had called them all (the Avengers) in despite being scattered across the different ends of this earth. 

At the time, he was angry in disbelief or being kept in the dark or just wondering what kind of world had the audacity to shove an imposter of the woman he loved to his face. 

The reason as to why she was alive instead of buried under a thousand feet of snow after being caved in due to an avalanche, a result of a failed attempt to recover Bucky's body like her file indicated was called Operation Purge—just after establishing SHIELD with Howard and Chet Phillips, Project Paperclip was imposed by the government on the agency and Peggy discovered almost immediately the reason why Congress was so adamant on the employment of "former" Nazi scientists.

Peggy remembered being so breathless when she realized it all. She stumbled back from where she stood, her head spinning and heart just coming to a stop. The adage proved true; cut off one head and three more shall grow in its place.

Everything made sense, the strings of seemingly one-time events that didn't make sense suddenly had meaning, context. The Arena Club, Leviathan—everything.

It was Hydra, and they were planning something nefarious and sinister and she had no way of knowing it, not truly and not fully unless she was in the fold, if she wasn't considered a threat, if she was invisible to their eyes. It was clear she had to become a ghost.

Only Chet Phillips knew—Peggy knew that if Howard knew, then Daniel would know, too, and she could not embark on a mission having him pinning away for years to come with no real answer if she would ever come back. No, she couldn't do that to Daniel, she had so much respect for him.

The mission was going perfectly as planned—she was even indoctrinated to a Russian program as she gained traction and moved up the ladder of Hydra's inner works. Unfortunately, that was also the trajectory that changed her life. The program was called the Red Room Academy, and it was bloody. Peggy had seen violence and all of that from children whose lives were stolen right from under their noses. 

Her life, too, it seemed. 

After almost being caught, Peggy sprang into a chase, a chemical syringe in hand. She panted against the Russian snow wasteland as more guards ran after her, furious and echoing barks of dogs running after her—any delusion of giving the serum to be analyzed was for naught, she will not survive.

Peggy had injected herself with the serum and the running had stopped. Bright light had filled the prison yard and a man appeared, she recognized him as Senator Edward Alexander Pierce, he stuck out his hand with a sly grin. "You passed the test. Welcome to Hydra." 

When he and Nat had stumbled upon Arnim Zola's lair, they wanted to take down the operation only to be pulled aside. And the rest was history—it was a reunion he didn't think possible, the reunion that he still could not believe and refuses to take anything for granted. 

Saturday was still date night—he learned, from their catching up, that in the near seventy years he was gone, she always went to the Stork Club on Saturdays. Without fail, always early to arrive and the last to go. 

Even after the club had been demolished in lieu for a park, she was always there. When he learned of that, that was when he purchased the ring. They had wasted so much time, he thought to himself, he's not going to waste any second more.

And then, of course, by their cosmic luck, the pandemic happened. So, Steve found himself in Washington and Peggy was in their brownstone in Brooklyn.

He sunk back into the chair, content to just see her on date night, resolving, when he gets back, to ask her. 

Despite his plans, Peggy thought otherwise and she turned around, a smile on her face. "My darling," she crooned, eyes twinkling as she popped the glass container into the microwave for a quick heating, "How are you, love?"

"It's okay here." He says until his eyes lightened up, remembering something Tony had texted him earlier back when he was still at the hospital. "I heard there was a blackout in New York."

She nodded. "A truck had rammed into the power grid." She confirmed succinctly. "Pepper, Maria and I had worked all day to have the power grid fixed and diverted all stored energy to hospitals and public facilities. It's been hectic."

Steve planned on nodding, but a wave of sleepiness had hit him and he had yawned instead, earning a look of concern from Peggy. "Oh, Steve," she says affectionately, giving him that look that was usually followed by her hand cupping his cheek. Instead, he leaned in to the screen. "We can do this tomorrow, my darling."

"No," he protested weakly before sitting up, willing himself awake. "It's Saturday, our date night."

"I've forgiven you for being late seventy years to our dance, Steve, I can let one missed date night pass."

"I won't," he says firmly, with a gravity that resonates with the both of them as a hidden but understood underlying meaning implied that they've wasted seventy years. Not everyone is as lucky to get a second chance, they won't waste it. Not a single second longer.

"Oh, alright you stubborn man," she says with an eye roll, but an affectionate one at that before she softened up. "But you'll rest, yes? For me?"

"Of course." 

"How's your day, my darling? Anthony has told me that you had stayed the night there yesterday."

Steve grimaced but nodded. "One of the nurses, Sadie, at the pediatric ward caught it—"

"—oh, I'm sorry. Is she alright?"

"At the moment, we don't know. All we know is that we had to do contact tracing and that wiped out an entire floor of nurses. The hospital needed all the help it had."

The reason behind his new career as a nurse at one George Washington Memorial Hospital was, primarily, because he was qualified. 

Having been raised by a mother who not only served as a nurse during the Great War or during the outbreak of the Spanish Influenza, he picked up a thing or two because he always needed some extra patching up back when he was smaller and sickly and too damn stubborn to run away from a fight.

When Dr. Erskine got him into the program, he and the other recruits were put through a reservist army medic program, not to mention the little after-hours clinic hours he spent with the good doctor from away Camp Lehigh. 

So, when he realized that he was stuck, the first thing he had to do was make something of the situation, making good use of his time in Washington—which is pulling up every available shift at the hospital to help the front liners.

Fighting back a yawn, he does admit that it's tiring.

"Enough shop talk," Peggy decides with a smile before moving down to their living room, a plate of take-outs on her lap. "How are you and young Anthony?"

"You know," he says with an amused tone, eyes crinkling in fondness, "Tony would object to being called 'young Anthony', even if you're his favorite aunt."

Peggy gave that signature, red-lipped, cheeky smile. "Then it is for the best that he is not here to object."

"Well, we're fine—" with his magnified super hearing, Steve managed to focus in on his heartbeat, "—oh, and that reminds me, Pepper's allergic to strawberries right?"

"Deathly."

"And just strawberries?" 

The follow-up question, unsurprisingly, earned an arched eyebrow from Peggy. "And why is that you're asking to make sure?"

The sound made itself known to Steve once more. "Well, Tony bought a goat."

Peggy nearly choked on a broccoli. "A what?" surely, she reasoned, she must not have heard right.

"A goat," he repeated, "a three-legged goat, to be exact. He's named it Bucky." While Tony and Bucky didn't get off on the right foot, what with Hydra sending a then-brainwashed Bucky to kill his parents but a quick intervention from Peggy had solved the problem—"Tell me, Anthony, if Hydra had captured Colonel Rhodes and tortured him until he could not remember his own name, his own face, until he is nothing in his own eyes, nothing other than a machine with orders to kill and eliminate, would you blame him if he had been sent to kill you, me, every other person you loved? No, you wouldn't and you shouldn't because your friend would be one of the victims, even more so because he would have to live with the guilt of having killed someone. Now imagine that weight on someone whose life has been uprooted for seven decades, whose own friend he had assassinated, whose best friend he had almost killed."—which led them to having avoided a fight that would have pitted them against each other and probably split the group up when they were all at odds when the world leaders presented them with the Sokovia Accords.

Peggy sunk into the couch with a ghost of a smile on her lips. "His father dabbled in the care of flamingos. Bernard was the bane of Mr. Jarvis' existence."

Steve choked on the thought. "I'm sorry," he says readily at Peggy's raised brow, "I know that Mr. Jarvis was your friend and, well, he was a person, but I thought of a PA system yelling around at a flamingo just as it's about to have a dip in Tony's balcony Jacuzzi!"

She cracked a smile. "It is a funny thought, yes." Peggy sighed, then, and let her fingers just gloss over the screen of her tablet. "I miss you, my darling."

"If I were there," he says a bit drowsily, drunk in the voice of her, the vision of her so clearly there and yet achingly not, "I'd kiss you."

"And if you were here," she finishes with a bright grin, one that had his heart fluttering and his stomach twisted in knots like the time she was in that pub in London, wearing that red number, "I'd kiss you first."

And he thinks, unable to stop. "Hey," a part of him yells _don't_ , this isn't the right time, this isn't romantic, "I've got something for you."

"Oh, really? Should I expect it in the mail?"

"No," he thinks maybe it is the sleepiness or the fact that he is hundreds of miles away from her, that or he just loves her silly and he can't think of living another second where he is not hers, "it's already there."

"I haven't noticed anything around your office—" little notes and trinkets had become a tradition in their relationship, his office, which is cramp because he uses it as an art studio no matter how much Pepper insists that she can arrange to have a spare room in another floor to be fixed to his preference so that he wouldn't keep on bumping to his set of oils and acrylics. 

"It's not there." He swallows a sudden knot in his throat and attempts to clears this a smooth cough, which ends badly because he blushes and resembles a tomato more than a human being. "It's actually in our room."

"Oh."

"In my side, the nightstand—" but he couldn't finish because Peggy, with a smirk, reached under her shirt to reveal a chain, "—what?"

"I'm a spy, Steve, surely this isn't a surprise." She was wearing the ring around her neck in a chain and he just found himself laughing because of course his proposal is botched because she knows. "Besides, you were taking too long to ask and while you're away at the capital, well, I figured to just put it back when you came back. That or I would have hijacked the ring and asked you myself."

"So, is it a yes?"

And he thinks it really is a shame to be all of three hundred miles away from her because he really wants to kiss her.

* * *

The goat bleated in his arms, as if he was protesting his presence in Cap’s living room. 

“Come on,” he retorts with an eye roll. “You’ve seen me without coffee, you sure you want that to happen?”

Bucky the goat continued to bleat loudly until he found his way into the kitchen. Tony set down the young kid unto the floor where it toddled unevenly to the open space of the kitchen. He considered asking Steve if he could take his coffee, but it would be okay, it’s Cap and stole the entire pack of coffee—

**_Plack!_ **

The sound of ceramics and other glass tumbling and shattering to the ground echoed through out the room and when Tony rushed out, coffee out of mind already, his heart pounded. Not Bucky. . .

But Bucky the goat was fine. He bleated with a sharp, somewhat impish tone. “Don’t pretend as if this is the worst thing I’ve done,” he glared at the goat and the mess he made. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here and we can blame some of the cleaning bots.” 

In his attempt to grab Bucky, who evaded him and ran into the living room, Tony gaped at the sight. 

Steve was dead asleep but his laptop was balanced on his chest, a happy smile on his face. He inched closer, trying to be quiet in his each step but with every sound he made, it seemed like Cap really did wear himself tired with all those shifts at the hospital. 

He leaned in closer and it took all of his strength not to make a noise. It was Aunt Peggy on the screen, equally out of it. But what he did see was a ring on her hand—

“Son of a bitch, you proposed, sneaky bastard.”

Sneaking out his Stark-phone, Tony snapped a picture of the both of them and sent it to Nat with the caption: “The fossils got engaged and slept together!”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, yes, I know I'm late and that's quite literally the one rule. But come on, would you have Steggy any other way than late?
> 
> Also, I know this isn't how a Steggy Week works. Rest assured, a proper Day 7 will be uploaded.


End file.
